CHENNAI: Over 3,000 letters received by ‘Thamizh Thatha’ UV Swaminatha Iyer, the renowned scholar, who recovered the ancient Tamil literature from palm-leaf manuscripts for the future generations, started seeing the light on Thursday with the release of a first volume, thanks to the untiring efforts of Prof AR Venkatachalapathy, a historian of repute.
The letters were written to the late scholar between 1877 and 1942, by literary giants of his times including GU Pope, Julion Winson, Maraimalai Adigal, Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai, Parithimal Kalaignar, freedom fighter VO Chidambaram Pillai, and heads of many adheenams and zamindars.
Governor Banwarilal Purohit released the first volume brought out to mark the platinum jubilee of the UV Swaminatha Iyer library and G Viswanathan, founder-Chancellor of VIT University and chairman of the library, received the first copy at a function held at the University of Madras. Five or six more volumes containing the rest of the letters would be released in due course.
Recalling the rich contribution of Swaminatha Iyer to the Tamil language, the Governor hailed the efforts made by Prof. Venkatachalapthy in sifting through the voluminous correspondence and compiled a well-edited volume that would be useful for the readers interested in the world of Tamil letters.